Links

Sunday, September 12, 2010

I'm a Blogger ?!?!

I have a blog, but anyone that follows this blog knows that I post sporadically. I'll get on a roll and post in regular intervals, and then there will be the dry spells. I have a good excuse for this. No really I do. Don't believe me? Ask my inner blogger.You know how some people have an inner monologue? Well I have an inner blogger. I catch it blogging occasionally. Caught it today a few times. The bad news is that when my inner blogger gets going I forget that I haven't actually blogged it. So I thought I would share the inner blog for this weekend - if I can remember it all. Beware - the inner blogger does not pay attention to any writing conventions at all. Not sure my inner blogger even knows that a period comes at the end of the sentence. Here goes.WOW - Great REED meeting today (Friday). It was nice to sit around the table with peers from around the district and talk logically about my kid. We looked at data and made plans. Only one person said something stupid and really it was just from a total lack of training - I think. They mentioned that I never provided the doctors information from the neurologist. Now there is a logical reason for this. At the time of the evaluation I did not trust them enough to give them any documentation. If they wanted it they would have to actually ask for it. They never did. They did acknowledge it by providing counseling at school. Then they acknowledged it in the RTI meetings through some of the interventions. When I finally handed over outside evaluations I did it with great hesitation. I thought that they would bastardize the information for their own purposes. So the information they said I never turned over was not turned over, but it was a mute point any way. The point I did make to this person was that the information has been provided through the evaluations completed this summer. That information is current. The other is not. Once again the 3rd grade teacher trned out to be FANTASTIC!!! She actually had work samples available for the committee. So proud of her! I was also proud of the QUEST teacher. She advocated for the needs of my son. It made my heart sing. Now that was as my mom role, but as my SpEd teacher role in life - any person who is not in SpEd who actually pauses a SpEd meeting to ask a question for clarification gets a giant gold star! I was ready to shout from the roof tops that finally the school realized that we were not crazy! Both of us though were shocked by the possibility that the testing would not only be reviewed by the diagnosticians, but also by the dyslexia committee. Z went before them last year after a screener. We were told there was no way he was dyslexic. Scottish Rite even said he wasn't dyslexic. The diagnostician saw something in the testing that raised a flag. I am very interested to see how this turns out. BTW - there's a giant discussion right now about if the screener is sufficient for evaluating kids for services. I'm on the side of screeners are crap and shouldn't be used at all. If a kid is even being looked at that closely then they are having significant issues in the classroom and someone better find a way to help them. When we were told that Z did not qualify we didn't just drop it. Many parents don't know where to turn when the school says no. This is how kids get lost in the shuffle.To celebrate we went to Freddy's Frozen Custard. Now I know - we missed the Leander v. Cedar Park game, but I was celebrating. I let the kids order milkshakes for their drink and what ever food made them happy. I was amazed that there was not a seat in the house and we had to wait for someone to get up before eating. Of course we saw people we knew while we were there. It's always nice to see the Reitz family. We should go on another camp out soon.So Saturday mornings are usually my blog time, but this Saturday I went to an NJHS training. It was nice to know that we're not as weird a group as we feel. We went to some sessions led by national peeps and learned a lot. My favorite was that our group of 168 students is not abnormal for a campus our size when looking at the national numbers. We were also inspired to ignite a passion in our students. I cannot wait to share with the kids. While down there I found some great photo sites that I can't wait to bring someone down to.The only bummer is that I'm at a week of that nasty medicine and my ear is still going out on me. I also feel like crap a lot of the time, but not enough to actually be sick. Early to bed is now my philosophy until I can feel better.You know that old adage - measure twice cut once? Well it totally applied to A's skirt. I measured her waist and for got to measure her hips. She actually has hips! So now I have a cute little skirt for a girl with less hips. Good thing the materials I bought had enough for another skirt. Almost done with skirt attempt #2. Finished a little gift for my friend Erin who's baby shower is next weekend. I'm excited about it. Almost done with some photo editing that needs to be finished soon.OH! And I couldn't resist going to Archivers today! If you didn't know this about me - I am a sucker for Halloween related stamps. I don't know why really but I LOVE HALLOWEEN STAMPS. So I bought the Alice in Wonderland Halloween paper and some Halloween stamps. I need to get out my fall stuff and play. I have some Halloween fabric I'm going to play with as well.I also LOVE quiet alone time. I had lots of fits from the kids about nap time so I started calling it quiet alone time. There are times when they have just had too much time together. So I make them take quiet alone time - ok it's to preserve my sanity. With my ear playing tricks on me I need a lot of quiet alone time. It hurts to hear the little sounds kids make, and then the droning noises of Nate's audio books - UGH! I try to drown it out with Pandora or my sewing machine, but honestly what I need is silence. Silence is the best. I think it will be the motivator to get me to clean up A's desk so that I can close my door. All week of the middle school noises, and dance, and everything else that makes noise all I want on the weekends is some times of silence. When I'm alone in the car I turn the radio off so that I have a few moments of silence. So today I had a couple hours of quiet alone time. Went to Archivers, but otherwise enjoyed the quiet of my house. I thought of quiet alone time this week at school too. A student was trying to focus on the assignment and couldn't because the teacher was still using her whole class voice when addressing individuals at their desk. He and I both needed quiet alone time just to think so that we could communicate. It made me realize that sometimes as teachers we are so eager to help that sometimes we do not allow enough hang time after the lesson to let the kids figure it out. I need to get better at that. Maybe that will be my goal this week - to allow at least a minute pass before start going around and helping. I think giving that processing time to kids would be a benefit.So I watched a little youtube today. Actually I watched things I had seen before. One of them was about technology and our children. Z and I have spoken before about him blogging. I might actually let him do that. Need to get with him on that.We ordered our bento kits today. Besides being an encouragement to me to eat better I saw a link on the page that got me thinking. There is so much waste at lunch time. Each item comes in it's own little wrapper, or even a sandwich baggie of some sort. Then I use plastic utensils and a paper napkin. So the link was about a campaign for a waste free lunch. I wonder what could happen is we all try for a waste free lunch. I am actually grossed out at how much processed food comes to school for lunches. Doesn't anyone know how to make a sandwich any more? I admit A has taken a lunchable several times this year, but that will start slowing down as soon as the bento kits get here. She'll learn how to make her own and it won't come with kool-aid, and a reeces. My kids prefer much healthier foods so I just need to support that.We started a new thing this school year. Took some getting used to, but we might be on it. The kids have these hanging things in their closets. There are 5 cubbies in them. On Sunday night they pick out their clothes for the week and put them in the cubbies. Thank God because I was tired of fighting with them on what to wear every day. The goal is to get it to the point that their extra curricular stuff will go in it's days slot as well. Monday - cub scout stuff, Tuesday - Cheer / Hip Hop, Thursday - Cheer, Friday - Ballet. Last week we forgot the ballet shoes. Hopefully not this week.Talking about ballet. A is the only kid in her class. If you have a kiddo her age and want to do ballet. We take at MA Dance Project 5:30 - 6:15 on Fridays. We would love to have you join us.

So now that you've met my inner blog I'm thinking about naming it. Any ideas on a name for my inner blog?

2 comments:

I dedicated one year to blogging. I'm about three months away from blogging every day, and then I'm going to reaccess. It's how I get my creativity out, and so far...so good! I'm so glad you stopped by, it's always so nice to meet fellow Texans, but I have to ask: How have you lived in Texas and not been to the greatest state fair on planet earth? It's in Dallas, it last three weeks (starting the week of the 24th this year). They have the best food...anywhere. Lots of rides, and tons...and tons of buildings with everything a girl could want. There are craft buildings where they display photos/crafts/canning jars from people all over the state, and judge them. There are 'live' baking contest. There are lots of vendors selling a bunch of stuff you don't need. Two entired buildings are full of the 'newest' cars, more buildings house new inventions for the home, and life. One of my favorite buildings is a farming type buildings, sort of 'about organic Texas.' All over the grounds (outside the buildings) are stages with acts and musicians performing all day long, bands march through the fair grounds at various points, there are games on the midways, and more rides than you could ever ride, including the Texas Star-a ginormous ferris wheel. Their site is bigtex.com. I hope you get up sometime! You won't regret it. If you live far from Dallas, there ARE so many things to see and do here. I have a Dallas Area Activities label, feel free to click on that, and ask any questions!! Don't be a stranger. Sorry for the length of this response but I kinda, sorta love the state fair!

Christy I wanted to know more about the fair you're doing at school. I know about the state fair, but it's always at a busy time for me. I think it would be a great change to the usual way we do TAKS interventions.

Followers

Blog Archive

Discolsure Statement

This policy is valid from 25 November 2010

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact ellen at deckinga dot com.

This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. We write for our own purposes. However, we may be influenced by our background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.

The owner(s) of this blog will never receive compensation in any way from this blog.

The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.

This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.